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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Pulo Aura/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by SandyGeorgia 13:16, 30 April 2010 [1].

Battle of Pulo Aura

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Battle of Pulo Aura (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Nominator(s): Jackyd101 (talk) 17:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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An article on an unusual naval engagement in 1804, in which an undefended fleet of British merchant ships worth the equivalent of more than £500 million in today's money successfully intimidated a powerful squadron of French warships into withdrawing, when the French had the fleet at their mercy. It has been through GA and I have been assisted with images, sources and French language issues by users Benea and Rama. All comments welcome. Jackyd101 (talk) 17:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the editor below that this box would be more distracing if it was absent, although I will endeavour to fill the boxes with relevant information.--Jackyd101 (talk) 18:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support

  • I didn't find the empty notes section distracting. I thought it would be more distracting if the tables were not aligned. And there may be notes that are added later.
  • I've got to disclose a sentimental attachment to this article. It is one of the first articles I reviewed for GA status (it might have been the first), and I use this battle in a course I teach on spies and assassins in 19th century Europe. I've watched the development of this article from a wee bitty thing to what it is today. Okay, that said, I support this wholeheartedly, although there are probably some niggling things to find in the prose. In one, you use the word convoyed and convoy twice in the same sentence, when the warships convoyed the ships to through the straight and across the IO. I'd just say conducted there. There also might be some misplaced prepositional phrases in the aftermath section, but I'll leave that to some of the others, because it might not be as glaring.
  • Sources are reliable, and there are no major sources omitted. I also spot checked some of the citations in my copies of these sources, and they are fine. The Clowes is venerable, but I appreciate editors who use some of the old sources; these can often provide us with "color" that we wouldn't normally get in the clinical language of historiography of the late 20th century.
  • Again, Jackyd, another fine job. I'll read it again in a few days, but I can't imagine changing my support. Auntieruth55 (talk) 01:00, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thankyou for those very kind words! I have changed the "convoyed" not that you've mentioned. Regards--Jackyd101 (talk) 18:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Support

  • Enjoyed reading it. V. minor points follow:
  • First para, first sentence; "a large squadron" of "large ships" - repetition of "large" - don't know if there's an alternative adjective.
  • Third para: "mistake a large East Indiamen" - is the singular of Indiamen "Indiaman"?
  • In the aftermath section: "but failing to press his numerical superiority against British naval forces". It felt to me as though this should say "but failing to successfully press...", as the rest of the sentence describes him engaging in two battles.

Hchc2009 (talk) 18:25, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thankyou very much, all suggestions implemented.--Jackyd101 (talk) 18:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Inconsistent citation style. What is the comma about at the end of citations like this one?

  • —Linois, quoted in translation in William James' The Naval History of Great Britain during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Volume 3, 1827, [23]

And why is the citation given in the footnote and repeated in the text? Same in tables. If citations are footnoted, why are they also included in text? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:06, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The comma seems to be part of the template and I can't get rid of it through the normal channels. The two citation issues you raise were written that way because: 1) The one copied above comes after a quote (and this format has already appeared in a number of successful FAs). When presenting a formal quote like that, I feel it is important to very clearly and immediately illustrate where it comes from, particularly when (as in this case) it is a translation from the original language. In my experience this is normal practice in academic writing that requires citation. The inline citation at the end of the text citation is to conform with guidelines that an inline citation should always follow a quote, but I can remove it if it is a problem (If I remember rightly, I was told to add it at one of the previous FACs). 2) The text citations at the end of the tables are to show where information that covers the whole table comes from - I couldn't find another way to clearly illustrate this that also looked neat (and this is standard practice in "Order of battle" FLCs). Hope this clarifies things a bit--Jackyd101 (talk) 14:18, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support, however I agree with Sandy that you don't need the citations to Linois/Dance just after the quotes; the footnote should be enough. The beginning of the sentences makes it very clear that these are the words of those men; the footnote is enough to id the source. I don't have a problem with the source of the tables being displayed as it currently is. Karanacs (talk) 17:07, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see this nomination has now closed, but I'm just dropping a note to say thankyou and assure you that I will get on to your comments soon. Regards--Jackyd101 (talk) 16:52, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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